Landshark5's Books for 2012

Books Read in 2012:

1. MG The Book of the Car by Anders Ditley Clausager
2. The Far Side Gallery 4 by Gary Larson
3. What ... No Landing Field? by R.E. (Bob) Ellis
4. 7 Weeks To 100 Push-Ups by Steve Speirs
5. 7 Weeks to 50 Pull-Ups by Brett Stewart
6. Bodyweight and Dumbbell Exercises by Bodybuilding.com
7. Up, Down, Or Sideways by Mark Sanborn
8. The Google Plus Guide by Scott McNulty
9. What You Can Learn From Warren Buffett by Donna Carpenter and Maurice Coyle
10. Bio of a Space Tyrant Vol 1 Refugee by Piers Anthony
11. Weight Loss for Wimps by Kevin Myers
12. The Art of the Surrealists by Edmund Swinglehurst
13. Thieves' World edited by Robert Asprin
14. Tales From The Vulgar Unicorn edited by Robert Asprin
15. Shadows Of Sanctuary edited by Robert Asprin
16. Storm Season edited by Robert Asprin
17. Go The F**k To Sleep by Adam Mansbach
18. Global Frequency #1-12 by Warren Ellis
19. RED #1-3 by Warren Ellis
20. mek #1-3 by Warren Ellis
21. Reload #1-3 by Warren Ellis
22. Down #1-4 by Warren Ellis
23. The Face Of Chaos edited by Robert Asprin
24. Wings Of Omen edited by Robert Asprin
25. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
26. Rudyard Kipling A Life by the Editors of New Word City
27. Interview Answers by Ken Langdon and Nikki Cartwright
28. The Dead Of Winter edited by Robert Asprin
29. Soul Of The City edited by Robert Asprin
30. The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson programmed by Worldweaver
31. The Wandering Lute by Marion Zimmer Bradley
32. Blood Ties edited by Robert Asprin
33. Aftermath edited by Robert Asprin
34. Castle by David Macaulay
35. The Callahan Chronicals by Spider Robinson narrated by Barrett Whitener
36. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs narrated by John Bolen
37. Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber
38. Turing Option by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky
39. Prostho Plus by Piers Anthony
40. A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo
41. The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett
42. Ministry of Space #1-3 by Warren Ellis
43. David Starr Space Ranger by Issac Asimov
44. Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids by Issac Asimov
45. The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs narrated by Gene Engene
46. The Myth of the Garage and Other Minor Surprises by Chip and Dan Heath narrated by Dan Heath
47. Old Man's War by John Scalzi narrated by William Dufris
48. Saga of the Old City by Gary Gygax
49. Artifact of Evil by Gary Gygax
50. City of Hawks by Gary Gygax
51. Gun Guys: A Road Trip by Dan Baum
52. F in Exams by Richard Benson
53. The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence Krauss narrated by Larry McKeever
54. The Myth of the Garage and Other Minor Surprises by Chip and Dan Heath narrated by Dan Heath

Hi, I'm Jeff (Landshark5) and welcome to my 2012 challenge thread. I read mostly science fiction and fantasy with some of everything else thrown in. I live just south of Austin, TX and I'm currently seeking better employment so we'll see what that does to my reading over the year. This is my fourth year doing the challenge and every year since 2009 I've said I'm going to be more social and keep better track of others doing the challenge with me and every year real life conspires to prevent me from doing as much as I would like. Once again, I'll try and we'll see how I do this year.

My 2011 Reading List
My 2010 Reading List
My 2009 Reading List

My reading related Christmas haul:

Beginning Operations by James White
Partners In Necessity by Sharon Lee
A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin
Legacy of Kings by C.S. Friedman
The Dragon Factory by Jon Mayberry

and

Amazon Kindle Keyboard

Book 1
MG The Book of the Car by Anders Ditley Clausager
MG was a British car company that had some success on the racing circuit. Okay book about the history of the company with plenty of pictures of the cars. My dad has a 1947 MG TC that I may get to store (and occasionally drive) as my dad has no room and the cousin (or more appropriately, his family) who handled the restoration needs the space for something else.

Book 2
The Far Side Gallery 4 by Gary Larson
Humorous cartoons. Good for some laughs.

Book 3
What ... No Landing Field? by R.E. (Bob) Ellis
Bush flying in Alaska.

Looks like a great Christmas haul! Love the White and the Lee particularly (I'm waiting on the Martins until he finishes the series).

Hey Jeff! Got you starred again this year. :D

Welcome back!

Glad to see you back with us again, Jeff!

Hi Roni, Faith, Jim, and Stasia. Glad to be back and I'll have to use that nice wiki to find your threads before things get crazy again.

#5
You may have quite a wait for Martin to finish A Song of Ice and Fire. It only took him a few extra years to finish A Dance With Dragons and he shows no signs of wrapping anything up from what I've heard.

On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain
Free download from Amazon. A short essay that I grabbed from the free selections for my new Kindle. Short and sweet, it had its moments. As the first story read on my Kindle, I like the e-ink and general reading experience. I don't care for the text to speech on the Kindle and I'll have to transfer some songs or an Audible book to test the audio.

Congrats on the new Kindle! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do my Nook.

#11
Thanks
I probably would have waited another generation or two to get myself an e reader, but I'm thrilled to get one as a gift. It's easy to use and a comfortable read. Time will tell just how much I ultimately make use of it. First impression is great.

Book 4
7 Weeks To 100 Push-Ups by Steve Speirs

Book 5
7 Weeks to 50 Pull-Ups by Brett Stewart

New year and the inevitable resolution to get in better shape. We'll see how long I last this time.

Book 6
Bodyweight and Dumbbell Exercises by Bodybuilding.com
Basic book describing exercises using your body weight or dumbbells. Got very repetitive listing each variation as a separate exercise. Okay as a reference work.

Book 7
Up, Down, Or Sideways by Mark Sanborn
Free download for Kindle. Motivational book on preparing for life's ups and downs. Take a couple of the author's motivational speeches and stitch them together into a book and you have a book on coping and even thriving no matter the circumstances. Parts had me going that's interesting and parts had me picking apart the logic errors in the presentation. Plenty of anecdotes, little hard data, as you might imagine. An okay read.

Book 8
The Google Plus Guide by Scott McNulty
Book on basic functionality of Google Plus. Already out of date or incorrect on some aspects, but you need to start somewhere and not all parts of G+ are immediately obvious. Okay, but just going to get further and further out of date no matter what online component there is.

January 2012 Summary

Books Read: 8 (11% of 75)

Paper: 3 (37%)
Audio: 0 (0%)
eBook: 5 (63%)

Fiction: 1 (12%)
Non-Fiction: 7 (88%)

New Read: 8 (100%)
Re-Read: 0 (0%)

Off The Shelf: 0 (0%) (owned before 2012)
Purchased: 0 (0%) (book bought in 2012)
Borrowed: 3 (37%) (from library, friends, or family)
Gifts: 0 (0%) (gift received in 2012)
Free: 5 (63%) (free download)

Book 9
What You Can Learn From Warren Buffett by Donna Carpenter and Maurice Coyle
A free download for the Kindle. General lessons on life and investing based on Warren Buffett. I've noticed New Word City makes many of their books at least temporarily free, which is nice. If I would have paid for this, I would have considered it kind of short, but for free, it was a nice quick read.

Some thoughts on my eink Kindle Keyboard ereader. I've only had it a month, since Christmas, so these are initial impressions and may change as I use it more and get used to its idiosyncrasies.

First the negatives. I'm not very impressed with the web browser or the Kindle's Amazon storefront. Text to speech needs a lot of work. Audio is okay through headphones, but not so great through the built in speakers. The keyboard is just barely okay and data entry leaves something to be desired. It's way too easy to accidentally hit the back key. Active content or apps aren't all that impressive. The refresh delay, which isn't really noticeable when reading, is annoying when playing a game or using an app. I wish the Kindle kept more meta data instead of making you turn on WiFi and go to the Amazon product page to look info up. It really needs more options for organizing content, both in terms of internal storage and through the user interface.

I wish Amazon embraced industry standards instead of going their own way on formats. I am leery of the fact the Amazon has control over MY Kindle and reserves the right to change and delete stuff without notice. I wish I knew what information Amazon is collecting on my reading and use of the Kindle and had the right to opt out of it.

All the negatives aside, I am very happy with the Kindle for its main purpose of reading books. The Kindle is light, easy to hold, and easy to use for reading. There are plenty of settings for changing the font size and line spacing so the Kindle is just as easily read, if not better and easier, than a paper book in all conditions. I am happy with the Kindle's battery life. It may be different when I start going out and about and the Kindle is searching for a WiFi signal, but at home, WiFi on or off makes no appreciable difference in battery life. Active content, especially when it refreshes the screen every second to run a clock is the most noticeable battery drain and even that is not terrible.

I don't think much of active content in general, but I have to give a shout out to Grid Detective. It is a great logic puzzle game. The only negative is that there need to be more puzzles included.

Thanks to a couple of blogs I found through discussions of the Kindle here on LT, there seems to be a never ending stream of free books available on the Kindle. You have to wade through the huge numbers of romance and paranormal romance selections, but there are plenty of books for those that don't like those genres. And that is before I start searching all the classic works available on Project Gutenberg. I really do need to get better and more discriminating in my downloading. If it is free and even slightly or possibly interesting, I click on download right now.

All in all, the Kindle is light, easy to carry, easy to use, and can hold lots of books so I will be using it whenever I travel. It will never replace paper books for me, but it has earned its place beside them in my home and supplanted them for my future travels.

Book 10
Bio of a Space Tyrant Vol 1 Refugee by Piers Anthony
Free download for Kindle. Part of a recent sale gave book one of Bio of a Space Tyrant away and dropped books two to six down to $.99 each. The Bio of a Space Tyrant series is space opera. It is not hard science fiction. I am very much a mood (or should I say moody) reader. I fell into a rather analytical mindset when reading Refugee. Normally when I shift moods like that, I'll switch books or take a break, but I pushed through because I wanted to decide on buying the other books in the series before the sale ended. The story is really meant to be a go along for the ride adventure and suffered when looked at closely. I'm not going to pass final judgement on this book because I was obviously not in the right mood for it. Maybe I'll try it again later and enjoy it more. There is a lot of violence in the story that might turn some people off, but I saw it simply as set up for later in the series and foundation for the protagonist's mindset and personality.

Book 11
Weight Loss for Wimps by Kevin Myers
A free Kindle download on (wait for it..) weight loss. I am not this book's target audience. It is not written for people who want to lose a little weight, but aimed more at the potential Biggest Loser contestant really seriously overweight level. A couple of good points, but I did not like the book. The author is definitely trying to build a weight loss brand. My recommendation is skip it.

Book 12
The Art of the Surrealists by Edmund Swinglehurst
Picked this up a while ago in a bargain bin sale. Lots of nice pictures of Surrealist art. Surrealism isn't my favorite art style, but nice book.

That was probably my least favorite Piers Anthony series. I stopped reading him at all about 15 years ago, but I still love one of his early gems, Prostho Plus. It's a series of stories about a dentist who is kidnapped by aliens to do dental work on a whale-like alien, and then his further adventures. Completely silly but very, very funny.

A science fiction dentist, I'll have to keep an eye out for Prostho Plus. My favorite Piers Anthony series would have to be Incarnations of Immortality. I liked the Adept series and found Xanth to be hit or miss. The VR gaming Killobyte would be my favorite stand alone of his that I've read.

Anthony was one of my favorites in high school, but I never started Bio of a Space Tyrant. Xanth, of course was a favorite, along with the first couple of books in Incarnations of Immortality -- I remember thinking On a Pale Horse was the best thing I ever read, but lost interest after Wielding a Red Sword.

I do have the first volume of Bio of a Space Tyrant on my shelf, and think from time to time about starting that series. After your review I think I'll just think about it another year or two. Or three.

Like I said in the review, I'm a mood reader and may appreciate Bio of a Space Tyrant more when I'm in a better mood for that type of book. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody at this point right now.

I loved Piers Anthony when I was younger. Except for last week's Refugee and a reread of Incarnations of Immortality a couple of years ago, I haven't read any of his books since Killobyte back in the 90's.

Last weekend the first book of Bio of a Space Tyrant was free and the other books in the series were $.99. This weekend Pandora Park is free and a couple of other books by Piers Anthony are $.99 for Kindle. Hopefully Anthony's new electronic publisher will keep this up and put more of his books on sale.

I have to confess, I did pick up Pandora Park when I saw it for free.

I don't know why you feel that merits confession, but

By the complete lack of authority invested in me by no one of importance, I hereby grant you absolution. Go forth and read as you see fit.

Not sure when I'll read it, but I grabbed Pandora Park as well.

Book 13
Thieves' World edited by Robert Asprin
Book one of the Thieves' World series.

Book 14
Tales From The Vulgar Unicorn edited by Robert Asprin
Book two of the Thieves' World series.

Book 15
Shadows Of Sanctuary edited by Robert Asprin
Book three of the Thieves' World series.

Book 16
Storm Season edited by Robert Asprin
Book four of the Thieves' World series.

Book 17
Go The F**k To Sleep by Adam Mansbach
I'm sure every parent can relate to a kid that won't go to sleep. A parody of a children's book, some people have it listed as a children's book which is just wrong. Cute, but somewhat overdone in my opinion.

Book 18
Global Frequency #1-12 by Warren Ellis
A borrowed 12 issues comic book series. Science fiction thriller about a global group of experts that aren't accountable to any government and spend their time cleaning up situations from hostages to WMDs to mass hysteria. Neat series, shame the TV pilot didn't get green lit.

*Test*Test*
Will this post show up or be lost?

Why is my Firefox setup suddenly allegic to LT? I'm not seeing problems on any other site and haven't made any major changes lately, but for the past couple of days, the LT formatting has been screwed up and I can't post using Firefox. I've cleaned out cookies and the cache multiple times over the past couple of days and I'm pretty sure LT worked immediately after the update to 10.0.2.

Hmmm. I'm having no trouble with FireFox on a Mac or Safari on an iPad.

I'll just use IE for now. But it's going to bug me until I figure it out.

It's obiously something with my setup since I can use IE on the same computer with no problem. Looking through bug collectors showed a message about playing with the way CSS and JS are served which would affect the way the pages format and my ability to post? I found a post from a couple of years ago on static cookies which didn't seem to work. I've also done the regular things like clearing cookies and cache and forcing refreshes.

The bottom line showing the copyright info is different between the browsers.

Firefox
Setting cookie | static: /

IE
static: /1330137203

And to catch up on posting my reading.

Book 19
RED by Warren Ellis
A borrowed 3 part comic series. CIA decides to silence retired operative. Cool, think it could have been better if extended.

Book 20
mek by Warren Ellis
A borrowed 3 part comic series. Science fiction cybernetic body modifications. Interesting idea, not sure about the story line.

Book 21
Reload by Warren Ellis
A borrowed 3 part comic series. Intelligence agent goes after the mob elements that have infiltrated the government.

Book 22
Down by Warren Ellis
A borrowed 4 part comic series. Send a cop undercover to kill an undercover cop who went rogue. My least favorite of the Ellis I've read.

Okay.
So LT is working on Firefox again. I'm glad it is working, but scratching my head why it stopped working in the first place and why it started working again.

Book 23
The Face Of Chaos edited by Robert Asprin
Book five of the Thieves' World series.

Book 24
Wings Of Omen edited by Robert Asprin
Book six of the Thieves' World series.

Book 25
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
A quick, fun reread.

Book 26
Rudyard Kipling A Life by the Editors of New Word City
A free Kindle download. Short biography of Rudyard Kipling. Interesting, but I would definitely be disappointed in how short it was if I had paid for it.

Book 27
Interview Answers by Ken Langdon and Nikki Cartwright
A free Kindle download. Turns out to be excerpted from Knockout Interview Answers and shows links to buy it after every section. Some good points on how to approach answering job interview questions, but I didn't agree with everything they said.

February 2012 YTD Summary

Books Read: 27 (36% of 75)

Paper: 10 (37%)
Audio: 0 (0%)
eBook: 17 (63%)

Fiction: 15 (56%)
Non-Fiction: 12 (44%)

New Read: 20 (74%)
Re-Read: 7 (26%)

Off The Shelf: 8 (30%) (owned before 2012)
Purchased: 0 (0%) (book bought in 2012)
Borrowed: 9 (33%) (from library, friends, or family)
Gifts: 0 (0%) (gift received in 2012)
Free: 10 (37%) (free download)

Book 28
The Dead Of Winter edited by Robert Asprin
Book seven of the Thieves' World series.

Book 29
Soul Of The City edited by Robert Asprin
Book eight of the Thieves' World series.

Book 30
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain by Steve Jackson programmed by Worldweaver
First in the Fighting Fantasy series of CYOA adventure books. Programmed as an interactive kindle book, the reader handles the dice rolls, stats, and getting you to the correct section, which is nicer than flipping pages in a real book. I thought it was nicely programmed and the only negatives are inherent in the format. I dislike it when I feel a choice wasn't accommodated in the writing, not being able to go backwards, and having to restart when you hit a dead end. I will be playing through a few more times to try out different paths.

Book 31
The Wandering Lute by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Free download for read an ebook week. Short story featuring Lythande from Thieves' World. Not set in Thieves' World, but part of Lythande's wanderings. Okay.

Book 32
Blood Ties edited by Robert Asprin
Book nine of the Thieves' World series.

The Man Cave Irish Cookbook: How to Make a Traditional Irish Breakfast by Matt Thompson
A free download for the Kindle. I normally wouldn't include a cookbook in my reading list, but I also don't normally read them cover to cover. This is a theme read for St. Patrick's Day.

Book 33
Aftermath edited by Robert Asprin
Book ten of the Thieves' World series.

Book 34
Castle by David Macaulay
A fun reread on the building of a castle. Nice companion read to a documentary on castles that talked about some of the battles but not the building process.

Book 35
The Callahan Chronicals by Spider Robinson narrated by Barrett Whitener
Audible audio book. A reread or should I say a listen to a book I read years ago. In found I still like the off beat humor and puns and general atmosphere of Callahan's although some parts came off a little strong. The good of the audio production is the humor where listening to the puns and jokes can enhance the story. The not so good of the audio production is the song lyrics where the narrator has to guess at the pacing and rhythm. Considering Spider is a musician, the songs could have been done up right. Overall, nice listen even though it took months because I generally don't listen to audio books unless I'll be driving or whatever for at least a half hour.

March 2012 YTD Summary

Books Read: 35 (47% of 75)

Paper: 11 (31%)
Audio: 1 (3%)
eBook: 23 (66%)

Fiction: 22 (63%)
Non-Fiction: 13 (37%)

New Read: 22 (63%)
Re-Read: 13 (37%)

Off The Shelf: 14 (40%) (owned before 2012)
Purchased: 1 (3%) (book bought in 2012)
Borrowed: 9 (26%) (from library, friends, or family)
Gifts: 0 (0%) (gift received in 2012)
Free: 11 (31%) (free download)

Only one purchase this month! You have much greater willpower than I...

#48 Hi Faith
Those numbers are for the year so far. Actually, the one purchase is one book read that I've purchased this year. I've purchased eleven books total this year, mainly from Audible and Kindle sales. Of course, I've found over 100 free books this year, almost all Kindle freebies. Since I've found so many Kindle freebies, I've so far resisted the urge to spend my lunch hours in the bookstore. When I do break down and hit the bookstore, I'll probably end up with my carrying capacity being the only thing that stops the spree.

Book 36
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs narrated by John Bolen
First of Burroughs' Barsoom series. A reread, but a first time listen. The story is a great, fun, escapist adventure series. There were some moments of super predictability and deus ex, but for the most part you just listen (or read) and enjoy. As far as the audio, everything was well read and understandable. The southern gentleman affectations of the reader were well done and fit the story perfectly, but took a little bit of time to get into.

37. Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber
38. Turing Option by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky
39. Prostho Plus by Piers Anthony
40. A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo
41. The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett
42. Ministry of Space #1-3 by Warren Ellis
43. David Starr Space Ranger by Issac Asimov
44. Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids by Issac Asimov
45. The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs narrated by Gene Engene
46. The Myth of the Garage and Other Minor Surprises by Chip and Dan Heath narrated by Dan Heath
47. Old Man's War by John Scalzi narrated by William Dufris
48. Saga of the Old City by Gary Gygax
49. Artifact of Evil by Gary Gygax
50. City of Hawks by Gary Gygax
51. Gun Guys: A Road Trip by Dan Baum
52. F in Exams by Richard Benson
53. The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence Krauss narrated by Larry McKeever
54. The Myth of the Garage and Other Minor Surprises by Chip and Dan Heath narrated by Dan Heath

2012 Summary

Books Read: 54 (72% of 75)

Paper: 15 (28%)
Audio: 7 (13%)
eBook: 32 (59%)

Fiction: 36 (67%)
Non-Fiction: 18 (33%)

New Read: 34 (63%)
Re-Read: 20 (37%)

So 2012 was a hectic year for me and I disappeared from Lt for most of the year. It's still crazy, but I'll try and get back into the swing of thing on Lt and we'll see how 2013 goes.